Information Age Education Blog

The goal of IAE is to help improve education at all levels throughout the world. This work is done through the publication of the IAE Blog, the IAE-pedia, the IAE Newsletter, books, and other materials all available free on the Web. For more information, go to http://iae-pedia.org/.

4,000 Free Books from the National Academies

I have long been impressed by free materials available from the National Academies. They make their materials available free for online reading. Now they are providing free downloads of their materials in PDF format.

Early childhood education has risen to the top of the national policy agenda with recognition that ensuring educational success and attainment must begin in the earliest years of schooling. There is now a substantial body of research to guide efforts to support young children’s learning. Over the past 15 years, great strides have been made in supporting young children’s literacy. This report summarizes the now substantial literature on learning and teaching mathematics for young children in hopes of catalyzing a similar effort in mathematics.

The need for this study was recognized and championed by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Mathematical Sciences Education Board following the publication in 2001 of Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics. The tireless efforts of board member Sharon Griffin and then board director David Mandel led the design of this project, which is a comprehensive examination of the evidence base that can guide mathematics education (teaching and learning) for children ages 2 through 6. It represents the further extension of a portfolio of NRC reports focused on mathematics learning and teaching that includes Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics (2001); Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers (2001); How Students Learn: Mathematics in the Classroom (2005); and On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness: Judging the Quality of K-12 Mathematics Evaluations (2004).

The National Academies—National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council—are committed to distributing their reports to as wide an audience as possible. Since 1994 we have offered “Read for Free” options for almost all our titles. In addition, we have been offering free downloads of most of our titles to everyone and of all titles to readers in the developing world. We are now going one step further. Effective June 2, 2011, PDFs of reports that are currently for sale on the National Academies Press (NAP) Website and PDFs associated with future reports will be offered free of charge to all Web visitors.

Comments

Once when I was asked to talk/write about Information Overload, I instead developed a Web page on Information Overload and Underload. See http://iae-pedia.org/Informati...d_Overload. In brief summary, I argued that we have too little information available.

If I have a problem or task that I want to deal with, and others have already dealt with similar situations, I want to quickly retrieve relevant information about this.

Right now what I am able to retrieve is mostly somewhat removed from what I need, and often the providers want money to view the materials. I need both a better retrieval system and I want it to contain lots more information so that I can immediately retrieve exactly or nearly exactly what I need.

Written by davem, June 09, 2011.
Once when I was asked to talk/write about Information Overload, I instead developed a Web page on Information Overload and Underload. See http://iae-pedia.org/Informati...d_Overload. In brief summary, I argued that we have too little information available.
If I have a problem or task that I want to deal with, and others have already dealt with similar situations, I want to quickly retrieve relevant information about this.
Right now what I am able to retrieve is mostly somewhat removed from what I need, and often the providers want money to view the materials. I need both a better retrieval system and I want it to contain lots more information so that I can immediately retrieve exactly or nearly exactly what I need.
The National Academy books tend to delve deeply into very important topics. For me, they represent both information overload and underload. They are a valuable addition to resources that are available free.
- See more at: http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/4000-free-books-from-the-national-academies.html#sthash.pLlJ8J5P.dpuf